June 6, 2007 Kyle, SD (Badlands National Park)
Chased with Scott Blair, Al Pietrycha, and Mick McGuire this day. We caught the storm near Kadoka, which evolved into a supercell south of the Badlands National Park. We took I-90 to Cactus Flat then south into the Badlands National Park as the storm displayed an interesting lowering. We found a spectacular view over the Badlands near Interior, SD and observed the storm from there. After a few minutes, a funnel condensed with a dust column rising at the ground. The initial tornado touchdown was about 20 miles to our southwest near Kyle, SD and we ended up observing the entire 30 minute tornado from this location as it steadily moved closer to our location.
Once the tornado lifted, we headed east to Wanblee, SD and back north to Kadoka. The storm then took on more HP characteristics, but we were able to observe a second tornado for about 3 minutes as we we able to look inside the notch on the northern side of the updraft. This tornado was rain-wrapped and occurred about 7 miles southwest of Kadoka.
The storm began to gust out at this point with a racing wind-bag developing. We were able to get some decent structure shots as we drove east ahead of the surging outflow. However, the outflow caught up to us as we filled up with gas near Murdo where we observed an estimated 5-second gust of 70 mph. Unfortunately, my door was open at the time of the severe wind, and I acquired nearly ½ inch of rocks/debris on my floorboard.
